Climbers No.6 Opposition

♪♪ ♪ God is our strength and refuge, ♪ ♪ Our present and future, ♪ ♪ Forever we'll believe, ♪ ♪ In your sanctity. ♪ ♪ From our mountains shaken, ♪ ♪ Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ♪ ♪ O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? ♪ ♪ And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, ♪ ♪ Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. ♪ ♪ Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ♪ ♪ O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? ♪ In a few minutes, Pastor Tony will be explaining Psalm 129 to us, but we're going to read Psalm 124, and then Psalm 129.

Psalm 124, then. A song of ascents, a song for climbers of David. If the Lord had not been on our side, let Israel say, if the Lord had not been on our side when men attacked us, when their anger flared against us, they would have swallowed us alive.

The flood would have engulfed us. The torrent would have swept over us. The raging waters would have swept us away.

Praise be to the Lord, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. We have escaped like a bird out of the fowler's snare. The snare has been broken, and we have escaped.

Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. Now Psalm 129. Psalm 129.

They have greatly oppressed me from my youth, let Israel say. They have greatly oppressed me from my youth, but they have not gained the victory over me. Plowmen have plowed my back and made their furrows long, but the Lord is righteous.

He has cut me free from the cords of the wicked. May all who hate Zion be turned back in shame. May they be like grass on the roof, which withers before it can grow.

With it the reaper cannot fill his hands, nor the one who gathers fill his arms. May those who pass by not say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you. We bless you in the name of the Lord.

Amen. The Lord our God, the only begotten Lamb, Light of life and of death, He hath blest our sacred land forever blest. The Lord our wayward friend, And whose serene love On earth we rise and sing, The joys that in His right hand We all our death forsake, His wisdom, faith, and love And in our own devotion Bring us in at last calm.

The Lord our wayward friend, And whose serene love On earth we rise and sing, The joys that in His right hand We all our death forsake, His wisdom, faith, and love And in our own devotion Bring us in at last calm. The Lord our wayward friend, And whose serene love On earth we rise and sing, The joys that in His right hand Hail, Abraham's God and mine, Great God of wonders, Love and grace, abide with me. Fast falls the even tide, The even darkens, Lord, with me abide.

A safe, strong hold, our God is still. Father, we ask that the anchorage of Your Word May be our stimulus today and forevermore. Our God, who never changes, Our God, forever faithful.

Amen. Do sit down. Let's have our Bibles open at Psalm 129, which actually reflects the same sentiments as found in Psalm 124.

I use OM as an illustration. It could be many another mission. But if you were to bring together our leaders, our national leaders, you would discover that some of these men who have been working for God for many long years, and some of the women folk too, they bear the scars of battle.

Two men pushed into such a hypothetical conference would be on wheelchairs, both paraplegic. One as a result of a car smash in Eastern Europe a decade or more ago. Another because of some viral infection that he contracted in the subcontinent of India.

And it's the same throughout the whole history of missions as well as in contemporary times. Men and women who hazard their lives for the sake of the gospel of Christ sometimes pay a tremendous price. The health and wealth prosperity proponents that you find today are heretical.

Our Lord Jesus said that the path that he trod would be the one that a disciple would also follow. And his path was not, as I so often say, strewn with primroses. It was stained with blood.

There is a sense in which the Christian gospel, of course, brings great delight and fulfillment to the soul. There is a sense in which following God brings a great deal of antagonism. It's what the New Testament calls spiritual warfare.

And the illustration is both sides of the divide that we call the Bible. And so you come to this particular psalm, the 129th, which would not have been mine by choice to have spoken on, but it's part of God's word, and we must look into it. It's a somber psalm.

It's one which, when you think in terms of pilgrims ascending from the lower parts of Palestine towards Jerusalem, you wonder if this was a popular, repetitive chorus, so to speak, that they rehearsed together, or was it more in terms of a one-off? For it's a psalm which speaks, first of all, of haters of God, and then it speaks of lovers of God. In fact, I think I should accurately reverse that. It speaks of those who hate the Lord, may all who hate Zion.

Yes, that is right, verse 5 towards the end. And it speaks about, at least by implication, those who love the Lord but are dealt with in a very severe fashion. Now, that opening comment helps us as we approach this psalm because you remember our Lord Jesus also speaks about those who hate God and speaks about those who love God.

And in some of the perhaps most difficult language that he ever used, he said that unless a disciple, in contrast, showed hatred towards his parents, he could not really be fully following our Lord Jesus. And obviously there is an element of metaphor in what he was saying there. But what he does want, and what is very clear, what he does want to underline is this, that the person who is following God must love God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their being.

And this is what you find, I think, within this 129th psalm. Delineated here are two groups of people, the lovers of God and the haters of God. You may recall that right at the beginning of the Bible reference is made to a split within the first family circle.

There are those who are of the seed of the woman. There are those who are of the seed of the serpent. Abel, the lover of God, falls foul to the suspicions of his brother, the hater of God.

And as a result, there's great discord, and indeed the events lead up to the first murder. Now, what I'm arguing is that what you discover in the early chapters of the Bible, you find also in the following books. Those who hate God, those who love God, the choice is always made.

You have to decide whether you are going to be serving the Lord or whether you reject the Lord. The choice, I should have said, is always put. So, let's have a look then with this in mind at our psalm.

The lovers of God. And first of all, I think you have to realize that the psalmist is not speaking individually. He's speaking for Israel as a whole.

Let Israel say. This is the accumulative testimony of godly people down the centuries. What is that testimony? Well, lovers of God have always been afflicted.

They have greatly oppressed me from my youth. Repeat it. Verse 2. They have greatly oppressed me from my youth.

This, if you like, is the history of Israel. It is also encapsulating, because very often the psalmist speaks typically of our Lord Jesus, it is also anticipating his experience. He was greatly oppressed from his youth.

Here was a young Israel, a fledgling nation. She leaves Egypt and she's in great difficulty as she makes her way through Sinai, those hostile tribes that caused her many a problem. But it was there in the wilderness of Sinai that she is constituted as a nation.

God looking back with nostalgia on the event in the words of the prophet Hosea, when Israel was a child, then I loved him, I taught Ephraim also how to go. You've got the concept of the father coaxing the little child. Ah, says Israel, but yes, even in those days, the origins of our nation, I was in great difficulty.

And when the beloved Christ was born in Bethlehem's manger, there was one who perpetrated the policy of genocide in order to rid the world of God's seed royal. Lovers of God have always been afflicted. Consider the history of the church.

Consider the acts of the apostles in the centuries that are to come. Consider mission histories I've given you, illustration in more contemporary times. Lovers of God are always afflicted from earliest days.

And I argue in the most serious fashion, plowmen have plowed my back and made their furrows long. And as Israel returned to the promised land, she has much difficulty through which she will have to pass. But Israel's greater embodiment, our Lord Jesus Christ, when he looks back upon his own life, and at the end, he is able to say literally, my back is as a plowed field, furrows in my forehead as the drops of bloody sweat fall down when he was in Gethsemane.

Our Lord, a lover of God, afflicted from earliest days in the most serious fashion. But let me tell you this. If you have identified thus far with this psalm, for it speaks not only of Israel and of Christ and of the church, it also speaks of you.

If you see yourself as a lover of God and you have known affliction, then I hasten to add, lovers of God have always survived. They have not gained the victory over me. You could not snuff out the nation of Israel, for wrapped up in her future are the purposes of God.

Little Israel, who am I, says David, and what is my family? As he speaks for the nation in terms of his own creatureliness, insignificance. Thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, little amongst the thousands of Judah. Could there ever have been a plot hatched by man in writing or religion that started off with its main character as a nondescript babe on his mother's breast, rushed into Egypt because he is a refugee? But keep your eye on that little infant, insignificant though he appears.

And though when he becomes a man all hell shall be let loose against him, constantly under the bombardment of Satan, who leaves him for a little while after those initial temptations as our Lord goes into the wilderness but will return? He will be able to offset all the attacks of the evil one. He has not gained the victory over me. Think of that fledgling church as she meets in an upper room in Jerusalem, without sophistication, without political clout.

But ere the years have gone to more than three or four score, their saying of this church, these are the people who turned the world upside down, lovers of God. They've always been afflicted, but I argue they've always survived. And the reason, of course, is tucked into this particular psalm and hardly needs anyone who is well versed in Scripture to see it.

It's there. It's obvious. Lovers of God have recourse to God himself.

But the Lord is righteous. One of the most remarkable sermons that Martin Lloyd-Jones ever preached, and he repeated it on several occasions, had the title, But God. The Apostle Paul, you'll remember, on a number of occasions, tabulates the problems that are his.

He's in difficulty. I mean, the man has been broken. He's been shipwrecked.

The ferocity of Rome and the ferocity of Judaism seems to be devouring him, and here he is at his wits' end, and he says, But God, God who is rich in mercy, God who is able to take an erring theologian as Saul of Tarsus was on Chosim, as he dashes down from Jerusalem to Damascus and fill him with his spirit and give him a new horizon, this God who worked in Paul's life in the beginning of his conversion is the God who will continue to work for his honor, for his glory. You see, the Israelites of old, they'd cottoned on to this. If the Lord had not been on our side, they repeated again in that 124th psalm in the second verse, If the Lord had not been on our side, but it's hypothetical.

It hardly needs to be said. It's not a question of if, maybe, supposed, perhaps. He is on our side, and if he is for us, then it does not really matter who is against us.

Lovers of God, in a world of opposition, always have recourse to the Lord. Because, you see, you can bring all the negative factors into one, all the opposition to the purposes of God, to Israel in Old Testament times, to the church today, and God says, He will have the nations in derision. He will laugh them to scorn.

God is working his purposes out as years succeed to year. And though I say that this psalm has a national implication, this is Israel. It also has an individual promise.

Let Israel say, and then the psalmist goes on in verse 2, They have greatly oppressed me. He moves from the general to the particular. As you must do, this is the reason why on occasions I throw open the service, and so does Brother Tim, so that you can give us the great passages, the great portions, the promises of Scripture, so that we can enter into the good of them ourselves.

God speaks nationally. God speaks of his church. God speaks individually.

Lovers of God, they're addressed within these first four verses. It is the character of God and the conquests of God that give the psalmist the ability to continue the Lord is righteous. That's his character.

As for his conquest, well, he can do what a man might do for his unequally yoked oxen. He can cut the cords of the wicked. This cruel man who has put together two oxen who are not in tandem.

This rope, this yoke that is causing them pain. Someone comes along who has a generous and a loving nature and he cuts the means of the torment. And this is precisely what the psalmist says God has done and is able to do for Israel and for his servants individually.

Well, if that helps us to understand something of God's attitude to the lovers of God, then we invert it and we come to the concept of those who hate God. Now, let me make one or two observations or else you're going to find this difficult. If you had to define the church in the 20th century, at least the Western church and certainly the one in the United Kingdom, I would suggest that towards the end of our century you would have to use words like this.

The church that has forgotten to protest. The church that has forgotten to protest. You see, it's not very often today that you even hear from the pulpit that old-fashioned yet noble word, Protestant.

Those who protest. What basically should followers of the Lord Jesus protest against? They should protest against any who stand as an obstacle in God's purposes of permeating the world with his gospel. The great difficulty in this psalm as far as Zion is concerned is that there were enemies, those who were against the Jews, even those amongst their ranks who did not understand what Zion stood for.

Their lives were completely opposed to all that God wanted to achieve through his people. And the psalmist is prepared to protest. I put it differently.

He is prepared to pray in a negative fashion. That's something else that we've lost the ability so to do. We pray positively.

We always read the Bible more often than not positively. There are various passages of the Bible which are yellow passages, ones which we've highlighted. And they all are promises of mercy.

They're all promises to do with spiritual delight and indeed prosperity. But there is a sense in which Bonhoeffer was right when he said that you have to learn to read the Bible against yourself. When it speaks woundingly.

When it speaks correctively. Now, this is what the psalmist is doing in terms of prayer. He is praying negatively.

He is not praying for the benefits of a certain group of people. He is praying for their downfall. Why? What is his justification? Well, it's simply this.

They've got their priorities completely in order. In fact, that wouldn't be so serious. It's more of a mega-difficulty.

These are people who are frustrating the purposes of God. Now, the first prayer my parents ever taught me after the Lord's Prayer was gentle Jesus, meek and mild. Look upon a little child.

And it was right. But it wasn't the whole story. You see, there was an occasion when our beloved Lord said of a group of people it would be better if a millstone had been put around their necks and they had never been born.

That terminology doesn't fall too easily on our ears, but nonetheless, this is what the inspired record says that Jesus actually taught. Why does this compassionate Christ use such denunciatory language? And the answer is the people that he's targeting are working to the spiritual disadvantages of others. And rather than a man or a woman be in that category, it would have been better had they not been born.

So, you see, the psalmist, he's not quite as anemic by any means as we tend to be today in some of our evangelical circles. And in the 21st verse of the 139th Psalm, he will say, do not I hate those who hate you, O Lord. That's the point.

Hating those who hate the Lord. Why? Well, because the enormity of their sin is demonstrated by the fact they are preventing others from coming to an understanding of the purposes of God in Zion. In New Testament terms, they're opposing the gospel.

Every sin can be forgiven. But a sin against the Holy Ghost cannot be. And I understand that as meaning the hardened attitude of the person who constantly not only rejects the message of salvation, but does his best to be an obstacle preventing others from hearing it.

Haters of God. Well, what the psalmist does is instead of using promotional prayer, he uses preventative prayer. He prays, may their advances be reversed.

May all who hate Zion be turned back to shame. There have been many advances in the last decade and a half in our country of those who hate Zion which need to be reversed. There is legislature in parliament that needs to be reversed.

And credit to any political party who would have one of their leaders daring to go on record and affirming this. Moreover, he prays, may their victories be aborted. He's capitalizing on his first statement as prayer often does.

You don't come to prayer in a tidy way. One concept runs into another concept. They're not watertight.

He gives you a metaphor. It's a skillful one of what he's trying to show. He takes you to the flat-roof house of a typical Palestinian dwelling, a typical Hebrew house.

And here, well, there's been the cracks in the crevices, an accumulation of dirt and soil. There's a little bit of fertility, and as a result, grass grows. Do you ever get frustrated as a gardener that where you want the grass to grow, it doesn't? It's like men growing hair.

Where we want it, it doesn't so frequently come, and where we could do without it, there it is. Well, here is the concept of this grass growing in the crevices. This is representing the advantage, you see, of the haters of Zion.

But the psalmist puts it into perspective. He says, may, yes, may they be like grass on the roof which withers before it can grow. And he gives you a picture like the reapers in the book of Ruth who, in contrast, when they go through their fields which are ripe to harvest, they have a handful, an armful in each hand as they stagger home.

May they be like grass on the roof which withers before it can grow. With it, the reapers cannot fill his hands, nor the one who gathers fill his arms. You see, this is not a pessimistic psalmist.

Oh, he realizes he's up against great difficulty. You don't laugh at the devil. You don't despise what the devil can do.

You never cavalier with him. He can fell the strongest men. He can bring to naught, or so it would seem at one level, the purposes of God.

But, you see, behind him is the overarching sovereignty of the Lord. When you compare the devil's power with the greater power of God, you realize that it's this analogy. Here's grass that's growing, only a little bit of grass in the crevices on the roofs of the Palestinian house.

But here's the field. Here's the field ripe to harvest. This is what God can do by contrast.

And so he prays negatively. May their advances be reversed. May their victories be aborted.

May their representatives remain unblessed. Verse 8. May those who pass by not say the blessing of the Lord be upon you. We bless you in the name of the Lord.

You see, the greatest calamity for the Jew was for an unblessed Hebrew to be in the congregation. Blessed is the man, says the psalmist right at the beginning of this hymn book. Blessed is the man who walks in the way of the Lord.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. Here the beloved Christ is on earth. He's got a lot of people in front of him.

And he leads off one of his most glorious sermons by giving us the beatitude, blessed are you. Blessed are you. Time and time again.

But you see, when you look at that negatively, what our Lord is showing also is that the greatest calamity is to be unblessed. And that's what the psalmist is endeavoring to do. Unblessed are these people who work against the purposes of Zion.

No one would be so stupid as to invoke the Hebrew blessing on them. The blessing of the Lord be upon you. We bless you in the name of the Lord.

The Aaronic blessing only can apply to those who are lovers of God, not those who are haters of God. Now I ask you, do you ever pray like that? It's a serious prayer. But it needs to be prayed against those who are polluting our nation, against those who contribute towards the ecological disaster, against those who have no inbuilt code of ethics.

Do you pray against them? May their advances be reversed. Some of these newspaper moguls. I was amazed when I was in Southeast Asia just to see the power that there is in international television.

No controls. They've got the satellites in the skies. They beam down their programs.

No respect at all for the culture of China, the culture of India. Whatever rubbish they want to put is now accessible. And it is very, very difficult to siphon, to sift what comes down.

Do you pray against that? Do you pray against the sanctifying of the media, the use of radio, the use of television in a wholesome way? May the advances of those who perpetrate evil be reversed. May their victories be aborted. May their representatives remain unblessed.

So that's it, my friend. Here is a psalm. A psalm for the lovers of God.

A psalm that warns against the haters of God. Where do you find yourself? Do you love Him? Ah, perhaps not as much as you should do. None of us are in that league.

There's a lot more land to be possessed. A lot further we need to go. But at the bottom of your heart, do you have an affection for this God? Do you confess His Son as your Lord and your Savior? Are you sorry for your sin? Do you feel uncomfortable sometimes in church? All these are not negatives, actually they're positives.

They show you that at rock bottom there is a love for God in your heart. Are you wanting to push forward the purposes of Zion? Are you helping with your prayers, with your physical activity? Are you helping with your gifts to promote the kingdom? Then you're a lover of God. Or are you disinterested? The beloved Jesus said, you're either for me or against me.

What will you do with Jesus? Neutral you cannot be. Someday your heart will be asking, what will He do with me? Maybe that little chorus needs theologically to be tidied up a bit, but it nonetheless packs a punch. There's a choice.

With Him? Against Him? A seed of grace in your heart? Or the seed of the serpent? A cane? Or an able? May God make the first part of this verse, of this psalm, apply to you in a way that you never conceived of before. And may you have the courage to pray negatively against the things that are wrong in our society. Let's pray.

And as we pray, perhaps the overhead projectionist would look me out. How pleased and blessed was I? It's in the Supplement 64. Father, we come before your throne.

We thank you for a psalm that's stark. And yet within its starkness, there is also a mercy and a compassion. We thank you for a psalm that's sensible.

That speaks to our situation today as well as to Israel of old. Help us, Lord, to advance the cause of Zion and to pray against those who hate you and try to stop others from yielding to the blessed gospel which our Lord Jesus brought into this world. Amen.

Well, I'm switching to number 64 in the Supplement because it speaks out positively about the blessing that can be ours. May peace attend thy gate and joy within thee wait to bless the soul of every guest. The man that seeks thy peace and wishes thine increase, a thousand blessings on him rest.

We have to hand the bouquet to Isaac Watts for giving us the final word from God this morning. 64. How pleased and blessed was I to hear the people cry Come, let us sing our God's new day Yes, with a cheerful cheer we raise to Zion's hymn And there above us the college fair Zion's wise, happy place The Lord made wondrous grace And also strength and grace divine In thee our tribes appear to pray and praise and hear the sacred gospel's joyful sound Then came his greatest son crowned with his royal throne his little brains and judgment head He wins the city land he makes the sinners stand And the poor souls rejoice with him May peace attend thy gate and joy within thee wait to bless the soul of every guest The hand that seeks thy peace and wishes thine increase a thousand blessings on him rest Rise up, ye peaceful crowds be seated in sacred class Lord, hear my prayer and be grateful For as this my glorious God bathes in his blessed blood my soul shall ever love thee well Father, we speak of the tabernacle here in Worthing May peace attend thy gate and joy within thee wait to bless the soul of every guest The man that seeks thy peace and wishes thine increase a thousand blessings on him rest For what this church and the Evangelical Church of God stands for around the world we bless you, Lord and ask for the successful proclamation of its message We pray that in every nook and cranny there shall be a bumper harvest an ingathering of souls to be brought to the feet of your Son our Lord Jesus May the blessing of God the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the God of the patriarchs the God of the prophets the God of the apostles May the blessing of the ancient God of Israel be our blessing and help us to go on to see you more clearly to love you more dearly to follow you more nearly all our lives and God's people thoughtfully said Amen